October, 2010

(They were polar opposites with hearts of gold and a weakness for terrible chest tattoos.)

If you didn’t catch today’s UFC 121 press conference, you didn’t miss a whole hell of a lot more than the usual answers to the usual questions, but there were a few interesting tidbits revealed by UFC president Dana White including that he will be travelling to New York tomorrow to discuss some movement in the sanctioning of MMA in the hold-out state and the fact that he considered giving Jake Shields a title shot in his first UFC fight based on his record and accomplishments outside the Octagon.

Reflecting off of another, "Do you see MMA in the Olympics in the future?" question he was lobbed at the presser, White explained that things in New York are "moving faster than [he] could have imagined" and that he will be meeting with some unnamed individuals in that regard on Thursday.

As is tradition during UFC fight week, the major players of UFC 121 are about to assemble for a public press conference at the Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles. Beginning at 5 p.m. ET / 2 p.m. PT, Brock Lesnar, Cain Velasquez, Jake Shields, Martin Kampmann, Tito Ortiz, Matt Hamill, and Dana White will be fielding questions from the media. You can watch the proceedings in the UFC’s media player, which is waiting for you after the jump. And if you need any more help in getting hyped up for this event, be advised that Spike TV will be airing UFC 116: Lesnar vs. Carwin tonight at 7 p.m., followed by the third and final episode of UFC Primetime: Lesnar vs. Velasquez at 9:30 p.m.

UFC president Dana White and former light-heavyweight champ Chuck Liddell played the role of enforcers yesterday during an early voting rally for Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid at the University of Nevada. A supporter of the UFC and a Nevada senator since 1986, Reid is currently trying to score a fifth term amid opposition from Republican Sharon Angle, who recently complimented a Hispanic audience by telling them they looked Asian.

The unholy White/Liddell/Reid triumvirate reunited today at a rally headlined by Vice President Joe Biden. According to this Reno Gazette-Journal report, "The crowd broke into a roar after Reid, the former boxer, said ‘I can fight a little bit too.’"

Jason MacDonald’s loss will be fellow Canadian Jesse Bongfeldt’s gain as the Kenora, Ontario native will now step in for "The Athlete" who was forced to pull out of his UFC 124 bout with Rafael Natal due to a re-injury to the leg he broke at UFC 113 in May.

The opponent change was revealed by Natal’s management group Dominance MMA who announced the news via Twitter and Facebook today.

12-1 in his last 13 outings, Bongfeldt (21-6), who is the former Rumble in the Cage and TKO champion has not lost since getting TKO’d by Jonathan Goulet in 2007. His biggest win saw him defend his TKO welterweight strap by tapping out submission specialist TJ Grant with an armbar in 2008 at TKO 32.

Bongfeldt took time off from fighting following the Grant bout in 2008 after the birth of his son and relocated back to Ontario from Calgary where he spent several years training alongside UFC veteran Jason Day at Canadian Martial Arts Centre under trainer Lee Mein.

(Akiyama vs. Sakuraba is a cautionary example of why it’s best to wait until *after* the fight to make an impassioned plea to the referee. If only Palhares had seen this. VidProps: YouTube/AkiyamaYoshihiro2)

(As long as Stallone keeps making "The Expendables" sequels like he did with Rocky and Rambo, Randy will have years of work ahead of him.)

Well, it looks like Randy Couture really is planning to walk away from fighting *for good* in favor of a movie career.

The UFC Hall-of-Famer and the promotion’s former heavyweight and light heavyweight champ spoke with John O’Regan from Fighters Only over the weekend while in London to corner Mike Pyle for his UFC 121 fight with John Hathaway and he said that it’s likely that his days of fighting are behind him.

“I don’t know what is gonna happen on the fight front. I have had my wars, done my thing. I’ve been having fun, I can still fight, but I am not sure I want to make another run at the title or anything like that," Couture explained. “I enjoy the sport, I enjoy fighting, but its probably time to move on."

I’m not sure if retiring coming off of a win to James Toney is the way I’d want to go out, but I’m not a professional fighter with a storied MMA career like Randy, so what do I know?

With his fight against Brad Tavares booked for 1/1/11, Phil Baroni has two options in front of him — victory, or possible banishment from the UFC. Our friend Ruben Vera tracked down the New York Bad Ass at the American Kickboxing Academy in San Jose, and grilled him on everything from his brawl-based gameplans to his cardio problems to his fondest MMA memories. Honestly, it’s one of the most revealing interviews with Baroni that we’ve ever seen. Some highlights…

On his gameplan for Tavares: "You know me. I’ve been doing this for ten years, there’s no surprises. I’m gonna do what I do best."

On his conditioning struggles: "It’s genetic, dude. I’ve been training cardio for the last ten years, hard. It’s genetic. You got a guy like Cain Velasquez who just don’t get tired. He can just train all day. Even a guy like Koscheck…I don’t think there’s anything I’m not doing that other guys are doing. I have a lot better punching power than those guys. And I think I’m faster, I have more fast-twitch. I know I can beat them both in a race. But in a longer duration, those guys can keep going, and that’s one of the things that separates us…It seems like a lot of the Mexican guys have real good cardio, throughout history and in the UFC. Diego Sanchez has great cardio, Cain Velasquez, a ton of guys. I don’t know what it is, man, but I do the best with what I got."

According to Aldo, who has fought as a lightweight before, after talking it over with his managers, Ed Soares and Joinha and his coach, Andre Pederneiras they came to the conclusion that the timing wasn’t right for him to make the move up to 155, partially because it takes time to put on the mass required to move up a weight class and also because he doesn’t want to have to fight any of his Nova Uniao teammates.

"Actually I started in a lighter division, then changed to this one and tried the division above, but it’s up to [Andre] Dedé [Pederneiras] and he knows better," Aldo explained. "When I was fighting on the division above he thought there were many people of the gym on that division, and on my division there’s me and Marlon [Sandro] and I can play pretty hard on this one and I’m the champion, so I think it’s best for me to stay on this weight division."

Sometimes when you’re writing an MMA opinion blog, you forget that the fighters you occasionally talk shit about are real people, with real feelings, who would really beat the crap out of you if they found out where you lived. Case in point: Cheick Kongo, who didn’t appreciate a certain article I recently posted about him. Cheick joins Dana White in the growing list of UFC-folks who won’t be inviting me to any parties in the near future.

So Cheick, if you’re reading this and you want some justice, please don’t resort to violence. Instead, come onto our radio show next week so you can defend yourself and explain why you aren’t a dirty fighter. If you’re available, contact us through our site or Facebook page, and we’ll set up a time that’s convenient. Hope to hear from you soon…